We are removing some of our distribution partners

Jake Simms
posted this on January 31, 2012, 1:41 PM

Over the next handful of months we will be removing a total of 12 distribution partners from our dashboard.

The overarching reason for these changes is that we intend to do more with less. We are working on some new deals, but a lot of our time will be spent improving the remaining distribution options so they deliver more value.

The overwhelming majority of views come from three sources: the Blip destination site, YouTube, and our embedded player. Cutting down on distribution partners also allows us to spend more time and energy focusing on those key areas.

Below is our current schedule for distribution removal. We will be updating this page if any dates change:

January 31, 2012

AOL Video

Blinkx

PopBox

VodPod

February 28, 2012

Boxee

Samsung

Vizio

April 3, 2012

DivX TV

MeFeedia

Sony BIVL

TiVo

May 1, 2012

Vimeo

You can view your traffic sources on the dashboard’s stats page to get a sense of how these change might impact your view counts. Of these partners, only Blinx, VodPod, MeFeedia run Blip advertising.

By focusing our distribution efforts, we can ensure that the distribution points we build and maintain are part of strong experiences that enhance your content, help you build an audience, and contribute to revenue generation.

If you have additional questions, we’ve posted a separate FAQ article. We figured there might be one or two other things our users would want to know.

Comments

Chrisgable

Any way you can keep TiVo and Vimeo, please???

January 31, 2012, 7:03 PM

Chris und Thomas

I would keep Vimeo and Boxee.

February 1, 2012, 9:18 AM

Andy Miller

TiVo is VIP!!! Boxee is important too!!

February 3, 2012, 2:22 PM

Griotsouth

Please listen to what your subscribers are telling you...removal of the ability to cross post and partner with all of these entities will make a lot of subscribers even more unhappy with you. I for one need the ability to do one stop shopping with all of the partners listed above. They often bring in more traffic than what blip tv can do alone!!!

February 12, 2012, 2:46 PM

Chrisgable

I whole heartedly agree. After these changes are made, there's no reason why I shouldn't take my show over to vimeo and stay there. What do you have to offer that they don't?

February 12, 2012, 2:59 PM

Blip Support

blip.tv

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to respond to your comments here quickly. We hear you and this decision was not made lightly, but unfortunately it is not one we are going to be reversing course on. We understand that this interrupts or complicates the workflow that a small number of our producers are used to, but keeping these distribution options takes development and engineering resources away from other projects. We believe that focusing our attention on the Blip destination site, YouTube, and our embedded player will improve those widely used products and will have a much bigger impact for a wider number of our producers.

-Tom Reynolds, Director of Producer Relations

February 13, 2012, 3:44 PM

Dan Schroeder

Okay, let me get this straight. In your general notice, you said: "Existing users of Vimeo crossposting should see no disruption to their service." So if I read this correctly, if I sign up with Vimeo right now, that would make me an existing user, and I would still be able to use Vimeo after 1 May. Is this right?

February 14, 2012, 7:35 PM

Blip Support

blip.tv

Hi Dan,

We are ending the ability to crosspost to Vimeo for all users on May 1st. If you have previously connected your Vimeo account to your Blip account you will still be able to crosspost from Blip to Vimeo up until May 1st.

The notice you are referencing from your Dashboard is explaining that we have already stopped allowing new users to activate Vimeo crossposting since we will be discontinuing this service and want to minimize confusion for new users.

Simply put: If you have not connected a Vimeo account to your Blip account already, you are no longer able to. If you have connected a Vimeo account to your Blip account you can continue to crosspost until May 1st when this service is completely discontinued for all users.

February 15, 2012, 12:26 PM

Wayne Lewis

:( shame that Vimeo is going.

I know you said that there is going to be no reversing on what your plans are BUT i really do think you need to have a rethink about keeping Vimeo.

There is a lot of call here to keep Vimeo

February 22, 2012, 6:35 PM

Mark Ramsey

In my case, my site is built specifically for Vimeo, but I prefer to use Blip as the origin point and the distribution point for iTunes, YouTube, and social media. It would be very costly for me to have my site rewritten for another video service, so I officially join the chorus asking you to make an exception for Vimeo. Please!!!! And tell Vimeo this is good for them, too!

February 22, 2012, 7:40 PM

Joe Blowey

Hey People,

The harsh reality is that as long as you're paying nuthin' or paying little, you can't expect Blip to cater to anything but their wishes.

February 27, 2012, 8:27 PM

Mark Ramsey

Maybe so. But I, for one, am a PRO member. So I am paying something. And if Blip had said "hey we can continue to offer cross-posting to Vimeo but at an additional fee" then I probably would pay it. But they did not.

In fact, technically I purchased a certain bundle of service and will now be receiving less than the bundle I purchased.

February 28, 2012, 7:57 AM

Brian Self

i don't care about all the other ones, but Vimeo!? Really? Come on guys, they are number 2 in video after youtube, im a pro user and I really doubt that this effects only a small amount of producers.

February 28, 2012, 3:13 PM

Blip Support

blip.tv

Hi Mark,

Just for clarification, distribution to Vimeo is not and never was a Pro feature. Pro features are listed at http://blip.com/faq/pro . Pro features may change over time, if and when they do notification will be sent ahead of time. Additionally we always offer a prorated refund of the unused portion of your Pro account payment at any time if you no longer wish to remain a Pro user for any reason.

February 28, 2012, 3:25 PM

Mark Ramsey

That's cool. I appreciate the clarification. I do wish to remain Pro. But i would be happy to pay for the extra distribution to Vimeo.

Thanks Santos. Yes, I'm familiar with them. I'm hoping to avoid the switching cost - I do like the blip experience.

February 28, 2012, 4:14 PM

Micropatrol

Since you're taking some things away, perhaps you can add something for us?

The 1GB limit for uploading is absolutely silly with the advent and popularity of HD video.

I don't know how I can justify paying for an account that was supposed to make my life EASIER that is just making it MORE WORK to share my content.

Once that is fixed, I won't mind so much about missing Tivo.

February 29, 2012, 11:09 PM

Robert

BLIP.TV --- can you share any inside information as to help us [the end-users of your service] justify stripping these other networks? We've heard they're going, but we haven't heard the inside scoop as to WHY. Could you please share more? (i know, we're not entitled to an answer - but it would be nice.)

March 2, 2012, 3:21 PM

Joel Webner

I dont know I am kind of ambivalent about this, I understand that concentrating on areas that generate the most views makes sense, but at least before, i felt like I was actually performing mass distributions with blip this time last year, I mean, my blogspot cross post is no longer supported.

This is ridiculous. I've been paying for the distribution options, not your buggy little player that doesn't even work with Facebook. Blip.tv is not a destination site, no one outside the video community has even heard of it.

April 12, 2012, 10:08 AM

Per Klason

Ok, look, big mistake. We are here choosing between YouTube, Vimeo and _maybe_ Blip.tv. Now let's get real, Blip is less than well known and YouTube and Vimeo have the audience. The only reason I signed up with Blip was that you had this cross posting and marketing strategy. Now you are cutting down on that, especially by throwing out Vimeo, and this gives me hardly any reason at all to stay with Blip. After all uploading a video file to several places is messy, and I need to feel that it is worthwhile before I add another one. Your cross posting feature was smart and gave you the chance to grab the reins in this game, but now it seems that someone who does not understand the social media landscape of today is making decisions for you. I think this could be a fatal mistake for you.

May 6, 2012, 8:59 AM

Mark Ramsey

I'll say it one last time... offer this as a service and assess a fee. I'd pay it, most likely.

May 6, 2012, 9:10 PM

Media

Thanks for nothing, Blip! OneLoad it is from now on then, I guess. Not only is your distribution to iTunes already shockingly bad when appearing on the feed, you now decide to get rid of Vimeo!? Bad move, for most I'd say. Goodbye Blip, you have proven yourselves useless.

May 23, 2012, 3:36 AM

Plainbored

Im looking to switch to oneload as well, blip has been a constant disappointment pretty much ever since we switched to Pro Account status in November of 2011. Blip sees no consequence in sticking it to the users not on the front page - even youtube gave us some adsense advertising funds to promote our channel.

January 21, 2013, 8:49 PM

chris

I'm not sure what went wrong but i somehow lost the ability to distribute my blip tv videos to YouTube a week ago dispute having the ability to do so for years.

January 27, 2013, 12:14 AM

John Z Wetmore

@Chris - same thing happened to me. Blip would distribute my videos to YouTube last year, and when I tried today they wouldn't. No notification or explanation of any kind, it just stopped working.

February 4, 2013, 2:57 AM

Plainbored

sorry chris and john - i had meant to post this earlier.

a while ago i sumbitted three simultaneous support tickets over this and a couple other issues and got this.

Blip Support, Jan 22 10:57 am (EST):

Unfortunately this is just not the type of content that is appropriate for hosting on Blip.com. As such you have been restricted to three uploads per day to ensure resources are not monopolized by content that does not fit our guidelines. Additionally your YouTube crossposting privileges have been revoked and your account will not appear in search results. As per our TOS at http://blip.com/tos#prohibited :

PROHIBITED CONTENT

Videos that are not part of a high quality, original episodic web series can be removed at Blip’s sole discretion. Examples of content considered inconsistent with Blip’s definition of high quality, original episodic web series can include but are not limited to sermons, speeches, slide shows, audio-only content, webinars, screencasts, gameplay footage, tutorials, walkthroughs, meetings (corporate, community or government), personal (home movies, weddings, parties, vacations, etc.), music videos and content produced for other mediums (television, film, radio, audio podcasts). Each episode must consist of original content created by the account holder.

Exclusions to these rules are made at the sole discretion of Blip. For examples of the type of content Blip is intended for, please visit blip.com/tour.

----Basically we arent doug walker or bernie burns so blip has quietly decided to go back on their clients by withdrawing youtube distribution. pisses me right off because we were a pro channel that never got any sort of push, promotion or help from blip so to do this after almost three years was just the latest in a string of middle fingers from blip.

you can reapply after a few days but youll get the permanent denied box.

February 4, 2013, 7:20 AM

John Z Wetmore

Thanks, Plainbored.

After being able to crosspost to YouTube for years, I was suddenly cut off. So I reapplied today. I was denied. Blip also makes me invisible in their internal search engine. (If you search for [pedestrians], all you get are some lame prank videos.) And even if I was approved to crosspost, there are pathetically few places where Blip still crossposts.

I'm not feeling any love from the current Blip management. After switching from Google Video to Blip a few years ago, it looks like it's time to move to YouTube. I'm getting more traffic on YouTube than on Blip already, anyways. Search for my name over there.

I wonder if Blip will pocket my earnings without ever sending me a check.

February 4, 2013, 10:20 PM

Robert

After much frustration, our organization has declined to upload any new content to BLIP.TV.... All future episodes of our services are going straight up to YouTube. Goodbye Blip.tv, you use to be a valuable service. Not anymore!

February 4, 2013, 10:37 PM

Joel Webner

Hey JOHN,

you have to reestablish the connection to YOUTUBE., I changed my gmail password and it screwed up the cross posting so you have to go into blip and enter your gmail log in information again, if it was changed..hope that helpsJBW

February 5, 2013, 9:08 AM

John Z Wetmore

Thanks for the tip, Joel, but that was the problem I had last year. This time, it was Blip that cut me off from YouTube, and when I reapplied, Blip responded "Denied". There was nothing ambiguous about their decision. Blip has decided my series no longer is the type of programming they want to feature.

I need to plan for the day when Blip decides they are going to delete my account, particularly if they give me as much warning as they did about terminating the YouTube crossposting, namely no warning at all.

February 5, 2013, 9:34 AM

Plainbored

In case any upset blip producers are still tagged to follow this forum, there is a petition on change dot org asking blip to reconsider its policy changes and allow existing users and contributors to continue as we were before distribution, search visibility etc were taken away - blips most recent move deleted pro account status and announced they would be deleting 'violating' accounts in the near future.